A jury found Navy SEAL Ronald Gasper not guilty of murder on Wednesday,
accepting his contention that he killed a fellow SEAL in self defense.

The family of Bradley
Jondahl, the 24-year-old who died of a gunshot wound in Gasper’s Virginia
Beach home, sobbed quietly in the front row of the courtroom as a clerk
announced the verdict, which came after roughly three hours of deliberation over
two days. Jurors found Gasper not guilty of second-degree murder, and also
declined to convict him on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Gasper’s family and
friends — including several fellow SEALs who testified on his behalf —
embraced the 31-year-old Ohio native outside the courtroom.

But he also said the
relief of acquittal after nearly two years facing a possible life sentence was
overwhelming.

“I can’t describe it.
Elation,” he said.

Jondahl’s family was
coping with another emotion.

“It was devastating to
us to hear,” said Rodney Jondahl, Brad Jondahl’s father, as he and his
tearful family left the courthouse. “We’ve been hurting the last year and a
half, and now we’re hurting again. It’s going to stay with us for a
while.”

Gasper, who testified for
nearly four hours during the trial, told jurors the fatal shot was fired in his
garage after a struggle with the much larger Jondahl, who had grown agitated and
then violent after a night of drinking.

The two apparently had
never met before the early morning of July 31, 2004, when they met on Virginia
Beach’s oceanfront bar strip. Gasper said he recognized Jondahl as a fellow
SEAL, and invited him to share a cab as a way of keeping Jondahl out of trouble.

But at Gasper’s home,
the defendant said, Jondahl grew increasingly agitated and violent, and Gasper
forced him out of the home. Gasper testified that Jondahl came back a short time
later, breaking into the home, and that when he went to investigate, Jondahl
attacked, choking him until he was nearly unconscious.

Gasper said he escaped,
retrieved his 9mm handgun, and confronted Jondahl, trying to force him out of
the home. Jondahl, he said, continued to attack, and he retreated to his garage,
where, with his back against the garage door, he fired an unsuccessful warning
shot before the struggle that ended with Jondahl shot in his lower abdomen.

While he no longer faces
prison, Gasper’s legal troubles are not over. Jondahl’s family on Wednesday
filed a civil lawsuit against Gasper, alleging wrongful death in their son’s
killing.

It’s also unclear when
Gasper — a member of the secretive Navy Special Warfare Development Group —
will ever be able to resume his SEAL career. He refused to answer a question
about his future in the Navy on Wednesday.

SEAL's slaying left family stunned, sickened and outraged

Rodney
and Leone Jondahl kneel at their son Bradley’s headstone Friday at
Sunset Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Aberdeen, S.D. He was killed July
31, 2004, in Virginia Beach. DAWN
DIETRICH / ASSOCIATED PRESS

He also realized that death could be violent and sudden for a Navy commando, and
it could happen anywhere in the world, most likely in some dusty, foreign place
bristling with weapons and danger.

But no one in Jondahl’s family ever imagined that the 6-foot-4, 220-pound
warrior would die in Virginia Beach, the city that East Coast SEAL teams call
home.

Or that he would die at the hand of another SEAL.

“They are trained to kill, I know that,” said Rodney Jondahl, Bradley’s
father, who watched his son grow from a skinny Midwestern youth into a powerful
member of the nation’s fighting elite. “But they aren’t trained to kill
each other. They are not trained to kill a brother SEAL.”

That’s what police said happened on July 31, 2004, when Ronald J. Gasper
– a member of a secretive SEAL team based at Dam Neck Fleet Combat Training
Center – shot Jondahl once in the stomach at Gasper’s Bayside home.

The two commandos had retired there after a night of drinking at a Beach
nightspot.

Gasper’s only known comment about what happened that night was made public
during a preliminary hearing last year.

According to police testimony, Gasper, 31, said Jondahl was acting messed up
, so “I shot him.” He also told police that he thought Jondahl would survive
because “I only shot him once in the gut, not in the head,” according to
testimony.

Jondahl died later that day in the hospital.

Gasper, charged with first-degree murder, is scheduled to be tried at the end
of January . The case has attracted national media attention. The trial may be
broadcast by Court TV .

The case still sickens the heart of Rodney Jondahl, other family members and
friends, who were stunned when they heard by long-distance telephone about
Bradley Jondahl’s mysterious death.

“You just can’t comprehend getting a call like that,” Rodney Jondahl
said. “Especially when you learn that his death was caused by another SEAL.”

Those first horrible moments brought back a flood of memories for Bradley
Jondahl’s loved ones.

As a mischievous high school student, Jondahl practiced both the martial arts
and the violin, family friend Thomas Stenvig said.

“He had an odd combination of talents and interests,” said Stenvig, a
57-year-old college professor at South Dakota State University . “He did not
flourish in school but went right in the Navy, and that was his niche.”

Those bittersweet memories turned to outrage when friends and family of
Jondahl thought the Navy was protecting the man charged in his death, Stenvig
said.

The nation’s top SEAL , Rear Adm. Joseph Maguire, commander of the Naval
Special Warfare Command in San Diego , requested by letter that no cameras be
allowed in the courtroom during the trial, citing national security concerns.

A Virginia Beach judge ruled this month that cameras will be allowed but that
no military personnel except Gasper can be filmed.

Gasper is free, pending trial, on a $30,000 bond – a highly unusual
arrangement for a murder defendant. It was made possible, in part, because of a
promise from the Navy that Gasper could remain at his Dam Neck job and would not
be deployed.

“I think it is highly questionable,” Stenvig said. “ What is behind
it?”

“He should not be working now,” added Jondahl’s half sister, Lori
Perdue, a member of the Air Force who encouraged her younger brother to follow
her into the military.

Rodney Jondahl said the Navy’s official response to the slaying seems to be
tilted in favor of Gasper. He believes his family’s personal tragedy is being
ignored while tax dollars are supporting the man who is accused of taking his
son’s life.

He also worries that Gasper is being primed to be cleared of any
responsibility.